THE GEIGER DATABASE

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Frank Lloyd Wright commissions

Frank Lloyd Wright Commission Titles

The information presented here exhibits the extent to which John Geiger considered many points of reference related to a given Frank Lloyd Wright project. Aside from basic information such as title, location, and project date, Geiger extended his interests to types of floor and roof plans, types of construction and building purpose, and where possible the dates of the various stages of development in the design process and construction. Geiger often included citations for bibliographic references as sources for the recorded information in an elaborate but unevenly developed series of attributions.

Project Information

House for Mr. and Mrs. Isadore Heller [Chicago, Illinois] (1896)

Note: The following information concerning this project represents original research and analysis by John Geiger, and is based in his long and detailed study of the Frank Lloyd Wright literature as well as personal contacts with members of the Taliesin Fellowship and architectural historians. In addition, he added his own categories of building type and compositional form, as well as other points of consideration that he deemed important to understanding of the design. As with any primary archival source material, the references and sources of attribution should be consulted where possible to affirm the data provided. Sometimes there is an indication of attribution for which there is no matching footnote recorded. Some understanding of the intended source may be discovered in remaining notes or frequently cited publications which appear in the comment field.

Name of client: Heller, Isadore.

Sobriquet or alternative place name: None.

Design Status (as of 2011): Executed.

Occupancy form or use: HOUSING/Residential/Single Family.

Principal building materials: Not assigned.

Number of drawings for this project detailed in the database: 9.

Drawing Number and Description

9606.??1     First floor plan, perspective and details (in Ausgefurte Bauten, 1910), P. IV
9606.??2     Gloor plan and elevation Aechitectura Record 63, January 1928
9606.002     Frieze study
9606.004     Details of living room fireplace and dining room fireplace and buffet
9606.005     Perspective from entrance side of house
9606.006     First floor plan
9606.007     Perspective from front left
9606.011     Addition of elevator, bedroom, bath, etc
9606.030     Fireplace elevation

Individuals recorded as contributing to project:

Note: Not everyone who contributed to a project may be named; only those whose participation has been confirmed from a source appear above. Occasionally names presented as contributors to a project may seem chronologically anomalous. This usually occurs when an individual prepared drawings for publicity, exhibition, or publication long after the original date of a commission.

Individuals recorded as producing drawings for this project:
Wright, Frank Lloyd


Roof type: Hipped2.

Note: Records a category devised by Geiger to classify the types of roof structure found in Frank Lloyd Wright projects. These terms were applied consistently through a choice list on Column [ROOFTYPE] in Table MMTFDRAWINGS FILE, and may be searched.

Roof pattern type: 0203 Rectangle/applied

Note: Records a category devised by Geiger to classify types of roof pattern from an aerial perspective found Frank Lloyd Wright projects.These terms were applied consistently through a choice list on Column [ROOFPATTERNTYPE] in Table MMTFDRAWINGS FILE, and may be searched.

Project Drawing Date Range

Note: Dates for preliminary and working drawings, as well as the start and completion of construction, appear here only when present in the database. Through careful study of original, reproduced, or published Wright drawings, John Geiger developed an elaborate granulation for design process dates and their attributions. Such information is largely available only for Wright projects dating from the mid-1930s until 1959.

Date recorded by John Geiger for chronological sorting: 6/1/1896.

Notes and References

Comments by John Geiger and/or sources of attribution: (1) See Frank Lloyd Wright Newsletter, Vol. 7, Issue #1, Febraury 1998, p. 3, estimated cost $12,500. Geiger 02/26/98 (An amazing 100+ years later).

Note: The information shown above is collected from a series of data table columns intended originally to record not only comments or notes, but also to cite sources of attribution for dates assigned to the various stages of drawing preparation in the design process. As with any primary archival source material, the references and sources of attribution shown here should be consulted where possible to affirm the data provided.

This commission is referenced and/or illustrated in the following publications:

Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph 1887-1901 (Volume 1). Tokyo: A. D. A. Edita. [ISBN: 4-87140-512-5].
Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph, In His Renderings 1887-1959 (Volume 12). Tokyo: A. D. A. Edita. [ISBN: 4-87140-523-0].
Riley, Terence and Reed, Peter (editors). Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. [ISBN: 0-87070-642-X].
Siry, Joseph M.. Unity Temple: Frank Lloyd Wright and Architecture for Liberal Religion. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. [ISBN: 0-521-49542-3].
Wright, Frank Lloyd. Buildings, Plans and Designs. New York: Horizon Press. [ISBN: 0790979667].
Wright, Frank Lloyd. Frank Lloyd Wright: Collected Writings Volume 1, 1894-1930. New York: Rizzoli. [ISBN: 0-8478-1546-3].
Wright, Frank Lloyd. Frank Lloyd Wright: Drawings and Plans of Frank Lloyd Wright, The Early Period (1893-1909). New York: Dover Publications, Inc.. [ISBN: 0-486-24457-1].